


A Tab In-Between

by Nina (ninamazing), ninamazing



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), The Sandman
Genre: Community: bsg_pornbattle, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-01
Updated: 2009-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/Nina, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Hiya, Sammy," she says, swinging her feet; the wash of her moving sneakers is all the colors of a rainbow. She grins like death, and that's when he knows.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tab In-Between

Kara kisses him and there is light. Too much light: It's a bulb held against his eyelids in a doctor's exam room, the searing afterimage of the nuclear blasts on Caprica. There is too much light, and yet he feels cold.

When he focuses again there's a girl, lounging in a high couch in front of him. She's got a tattoo on her shoulder, right where he put his, and the way she's sitting almost mirrors it: Under the curve of her head her arms stretch straight out, and she relaxes, blending with infinity. He can't tell whether her hair is blue, or black, or the silver of tarnished iron.

"Hiya, Sammy," she says, swinging her feet; the wash of her moving sneakers is all the colors of a rainbow. She grins like death, and that's when he knows.

"Where's Kara?" he asks.

"Look at you," she exclaims, and affects an exaggerated bass. "'Where's Kara?'" Death rolls her eyes. "No manners whatsoever," she continues in her normal voice — a crisp melody that turns his muscles painkiller-numb. "And you always thought you were good with women. Huh."

"You're not exactly a woman, are you?" he replies, and counts himself brave when he withstands the momentary flash in her eyes and still seems to be breathing. It's an in-between place, this; he can tell by the staleness of the air on his throat and the strange, spontaneous loneliness of his surroundings. Death sinks back into the couch and folds her arms, narrowing her eyes to watch him.

Sam hasn't seen oak paneling in what feels like an age; this solid, old-fashioned room could be a memory from childhood. Behind him are stools, lined up neatly in a row of ten, and a countertop that appears to have every beer in the universe on tap.

"Why am I here?" he murmurs.

"You like bars?" she offers. Her gaze is even.

"You know everything about me, don't you?" he asks.

Death laughs. "Pretty _and_ smart," she remarks. "A deadly combination."

"Deadly," Sam repeats, and his vision goes white once more — _too much light_. He has to shake his head to clear it, and Death is still giving him that withering stare.

"This is for real?" he asks. "I mean, real enough? I could actually drink that Gemenese ale?"

"If you want to wait for Kara," Death answers, "you might as well amuse yourself." When Sam's smile spreads, slow and easy, she adds: "I'll put myself on your tab, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he says, and the vaunted manners return when he pulls out a stool for her and gestures that she sit. She does one better and vaults over the bar; turns a quick pirouette and faces him with a cheeky grin. There's suddenly a towel over her shoulder.

"What can I get ya?" she chirps. Sam means to ask for the ale, he really does, but something ripples through this half-world as he leans forward and he ends up kissing her instead. Death's lips are sweet, dewy, orange; her tongue in his mouth is the white-light taste of his nightmares. He chokes and realizes she's stealing his air; the life that's left in him is jumping ship. Death jerks away.

"You shouldn't have done that," she scolds, wiping her mouth with her fingers and then her towel.

"I figured you would stop me," he tells her.

That dangerous flash is back in her eyes.

"I just did," she says. "Look, if you're done waiting for Kara, let's go. I'm a busy girl."

"I'm not done," he says, and reaches for her hand. She takes it like she wishes she could stop herself, and her fingers are damp and vibrating like a hummingbird's wings in the rain.

"She left you," Death reminds him, her black eyes huge, and Sam can't believe he thought her expression before was frightening.

"I know," Sam says. "It's okay. I'll wait for her anyway."

She puts out her other hand, traces one chilly line down his cheek. "You're a fool, Sam," she whispers. "I love you."

In this place, he's sure, she can walk through walls, so he isn't surprised when she lands in his lap and her body fits like a key between him and the back of the bar. He kisses her neck, and for a moment she lets him, her long fingers with their pointed nails twining through the soft scruff at the base of his skull. Against his tongue her tiny, throbbing veins are like crystallizing pipes of syrup on ice cream.

"Stop," she hisses, grabbing his head, and he does.

Meeting her eyes, he notices so much silent sadness he thinks he must have been blind before.

"I'd wait for you, too," he tells her softly. "You know. If —"

"I know," she says, and rests her palm against his cheek. She kisses him, a final inverse huff of ice. "Thank you."

He feels only briefly the curve of her limber arms around his neck, her standing body pressed against his as he stays in the stool, and already she's a shadow.

_I hear my brother coming, anyway._


End file.
